


Unlucky

by ancalime8301



Series: Case of the Headless Corpses [4]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancalime8301/pseuds/ancalime8301





	Unlucky

It took more effort than I expected to track down the unfortunate military man who had fallen afoul of our murderer. The missing fingers and the campaign pin should have made identification a relatively simple task, but the records from that regiment had been lost in a fire some time ago and the clerk in the office was far too young to know what had been in the files.

Undeterred, Holmes placed an advertisement in the papers for men from that campaign and we waited an excruciating three days for a response. When the response came, it was from a major in the same regiment as our dead man who knew immediately who we sought when we mentioned the missing fingers.

"Oh, that's Howie. Lieutenant Howard Caplan, that is. A good sort, but he had the worst sort of luck. The fingers were an accident just before the skirmish, then he was shot by friendly fire while trying to get to the med tent. He was sent back to London and I never knew what became of him after that. He enjoyed gambling, but always lost, so like as not he gambled away his pension. You said he turned up dead? A shame, but as I said, he had the worst sort of luck."

Now armed with a name, further research proved much easier, though there wasn't much to find. Our investigation into Lieutenant Caplan's history corroborated the major's assertion about the poor man's luck: orphaned, no siblings, no other living relatives that could be found, and penniless.

By the time we had gathered this much information, a week had passed from the discovery of the body. As much as I wished we could reunite the man's head with his body for its burial, I was relieved that the murderer had not struck again.

Holmes and I paid for a modest burial; I knew all too well what it was like to return home injured and without family, and if not for Holmes I might have followed a similar path.

The very next day, there was another body and the first thing I noticed was the skull: unlike the previous ones, this one was not flawless. The right side was indented and cracked, and it seemed likely the blow had contributed to, if not caused, the man's death. I recalled the stained overcoat, with the bloodstain on the right side of the collar.

Holmes examined the body minutely before turning to the skull. He glanced at me and I knew he'd come to the same conclusions. "An unlucky man, indeed."


End file.
